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Avowal

In essence, to avow is to acknowledge openly. An avowed identity is an identity that is acknowledged openly. This entry explores the background, actualization, and application of avowal with regard to identity.

Background

Ruthellen Josselson defined identity as an unconscious process that unites personality and links the individual to the social world. Although one's identity grows in assurance and sophistication across the life span, it is somewhat stable and consistent. People learn about themselves by connecting with the self, observing what others reflect back about the self, and comparing and contrasting the self with others. Identity is the dynamic interplay of complex processes that include development, relationships, and reflection on life circumstances and experiences.

Many scholars have written and researched the various components that make up identity. In 2000, Susan Jones and Marylu McEwen created a model of multiple dimensions of identity that include what they defined as core aspects of identity (personal attributes and characteristics) and contextual aspects of identity (family, sociocultural conditions, current experiences, career decisions, and life planning). The core is more stable, but the contextual aspects determine what of the core is more salient at a particular time. Some identity scholars differentiate between personal (internal) identity and social (external) identity. One is Larke Huang, who in 1994 created an identity model demonstrating two intersecting identities: personal (which is developmental and matures over time) and social (which is attributed by others). Huang went on to write that this social external identity represents the interaction between the ingroups with whom the individual identifies (i.e., reference groups) and outgroups with whom there is less affinity. Huang noted that the personal identity is known as an avowed identity, and the social external identity is an ascribed identity. Larry Samovar and Richard Porter also wrote about ascribed and avowed identities in 1994. They wrote that individuals enact various cultural identities over the course of a lifetime and even in the course of a day. They believed that this occurs through two processes: avowal and ascription. Avowal is often defined in opposition to ascribed or achieved identity. Avowal is how a person perceives his or her own self and the perception of what he or she shows to the outside world. Ascription, on the other hand, is the process by which others attribute aspects of us to us. This process is others’ sense of us communicated to us. Premodernera identities were ascribed in that they were inherited or conferred by tradition and were influenced by stereotypes. In some circumstances, ascribed and avowed identities can be in opposition or they can be similar. A person may find that his or her view of self is different or similar to society's view of self. For example, it is possible that a person's sense of self is different from the norm for that culture. In this circumstance, avowal encompasses the ways in which a person diverges from the dominant culture of his or her group.

The Actualization of Avowal Through Interaction

Several scholars, including Michel Foucault and Howard Giles, have written about the phenomenon of avowal. Both Foucault and Giles acknowledge that there is a connection between what is said and identity. According to Foucault, a speaker identifies with what is being said. By speaking, the individual avows or, in other words, becomes tied to intentions, thoughts, and deeds. An individual's identity can be transformed through a process of spoken avowal because self-knowledge is linked to reflective and verbal self-disclosure. More specifically, Giles measured speech or communication markers (i.e., vocabulary, slang, posture, accent) to analyze ethnic identity and group membership. Language is considered an attribute in determining one's inclusion in a group. Giles maintained that to enhance positive self-esteem, members of a social group will attempt to achieve positive distinctiveness from members of other groups. One means to achieve this is through language. Again, one avows one's identity through speech.

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